Last year I integrated Facebook into my world language classroom. I took Spanish (my target language) and made it relevant, meaningful and fun.

1. Identify your goals

I "backward designed" this activity by identifying how I was going to assess it and what outcomes I wanted to achieve. My former colleague @lelises and my sister @senoritaalopez collaborated with me to create a Facebook rubric. I began with a rubric because I wanted to incorporate Facebook as a formative assessment. On a weekly basis I wanted my students to share authentic newspaper sites,links,photos, current events and their views/opinions in the target language as well as interact with their classmates. I knew this activity could be both presentational and interpersonal. Ask yourself what "understanding" would you like your students to walk away with.

2. Receive permission from administrators and parents

After the Facebook rubric was created I spoke with my school principal @mskweldon. She supported my use of Facebook in the classroom and gave me the thumbs up. She did advise me to create a permission slip for parents. I distributed the slips to 85 students and had one parent phone call. The conversation ended with her thanking me for my progressive methods.

3. Create a Facebook group or a page and invite students

Last year I created private Facebook groups for each of my classes. I invited students to join the group. Facebook "updated" their groups and the group posts were arranged by most recent shared posts instead of chronological order. This year I created a public Facebook page for my AP Spanish class. All posts are in chronological order.

4. Take an active role in the conversation

Students write to me on Facebook all the time. Of course I love to respond only in Spanish!

5. Invite a class from around the world

Take Facebook a step further and invite a class that speaks your target language. Last year I skyped with a class in La Coruña, Spain. I wanted those students to join our Facebook group but unfortunately their school year ended the beginning of May and the teacher in Spain also seemed a little hesitant with the idea. This year I definitely plan to incorporate students from a class we skype with as soon as I find a teacher from a Spanish speaking country with students 16 - 18 years of age. I am eager to start this!